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Updated on
December 18, 2010,
D.B.
asks from Warren, MI
on
December 17, 2010

Crawling Baby and Hard Wood Floors....

Hey mommas! My lil one has started crawling. We have hard wood floors throughout our entire house. I've been down on the floor crawling around with him and OUCH is that painful on the knees. I'm assuming that if it hurts my knees (and I'm not crawling ALL THE TIME) he'll likely have arthritic knees by preschool....LOL

I remember that there used to be knee pads you could buy for this such thing. Or I kind of remember people would make their own...I just don't remember how it had been done.

Any suggestions (even better if they're tried and true) would be greatly appreciated.

So What Happened?™

Thanks moms for all the answers! He doesn't seem to be the least bit phased, so I give up worrying about it. I had no idea about the knee cap thing.....I guess you learn something new every day! Angie--Loved your suggestion about putting him to work with some swiffers strapped to his knees! LOVE THAT IDEA! And as one of the other moms pointed out....no matter how often I clean the floor (often, since he's crawling around on it)....you would never know it to look at his dirty little knees on his pjs. LOL

I appreciate the input! You guys are the BEST!

Featured Answers

M.H.
answers from Detroit
on
December 18, 2010

I have hardwood floors too. They make baby leg warmers and that is what I used for my daughter. They seemed to helped and it didn't seem to bother her when she was crawling around. Do you have any rugs? We had a couple here and there so that did help too.

More Answers

D.H.
answers from Detroit
on
December 18, 2010

It's fine for your LO to crawl on hard wood floors. It does not feel to them as it feels to you. Their bodies at this time are meant for crawling, yours is not. There are so many thing that change in our bodies as walking develops and continues as our mode of locomotion that the comparison you are making is invalid. Can you suck on your own feet? LOL

Hey dee.. I haven't read the other answers ... so sorry if its repeat ...but babies don't even have knee caps and don't usually until around 3 yrs old... So its really not hurting him at all... But I agree, for us grown folks... OUCH!
I tried climbing through tubes at Chuckie Cheese one time to get Emily and it was awful. lol
However, if you still think it looks uncomfortable for him you could get knee pads or better yet find a way to attach some swiffers to him and get your cleaning done too ..haha :)

Babies are made to crawl on all kinds of surfaces. Their knees are fine. The knee caps are mostly cartilage till about 3 years old. Once the knee caps are hard and bony (like for us adults) it gets a lot more painful to crawl on hard surfaces. You could make knee pads, but you need them more than than your baby does.

Babies and small children are not like us. When I was a kid I'd grab a pillow and lay down on the hardwood floor and watch cartoons saturday mornings. It was seriously no big deal. Now, I dislike the floor, couldn't lay on it with a huge stack of quilts and yeah, my knees hurt.

I run a daycare and no matter how I've tried to put blankets out, they end up on the regular floor. I just keep it real clean and forget it. Your baby won't care :)

I have hardwood floors too. They make baby leg warmers and that is what I used for my daughter. They seemed to helped and it didn't seem to bother her when she was crawling around. Do you have any rugs? We had a couple here and there so that did help too.

Hon, it it would hurt him, he would not be doing it. Little kids are pretty tough! My daughter crawled on hardwood too and I felt the same about trying to protect her. I put babylegs on her - but it turns out she found the babylegs more uncomfortable than the hardwoods, so I finally gave up....
He will be fine!

I bought "crawler skirts" from babygap for my daughter, they make "crawler pants" for boys, they are padded in the knees. Right now they have some really cute micro fleece ones on sale from $6.99-$11.99.

I'm going to second (or third) what Diane H and SLM said. Babies knees are very different from adult knees. Their knee kaps are not fully formed yet because they will be crawling. They can crawl on ceramic tile and on cement. Hardwood floors are much easier for crawling, because wood actually gives whereas ceramic tile, concrete, etc. have no give.

My boys learned to crawl on hardwood floors, and the worst part about it is the constantly dirty knees (no matter how often I cleaned the floors)!

Baby legs! They're legwarners for babies, we've used them with both kids, good for layering too, arm warmers, even a cast cover. I think their website is babylegs.net or .com or just google "baby legs"!

My youngest, 7.5 months, seems to get very red knees from crawling around on our wood floors unless he has long pants on, so...I make sure he has long pants on. My 2.5 yr old is my streaker, and impossible to keep clothes on, but I have never noticed any redness on his knees and he has never complained. I crawl around with them, and I have bad knees, and haven't noticed too much discomfort..

My son crawled around on hardwood, but you could use the tops of knee socks, or any other socks really, to put extra padding. I know they sell things like that, but socks may be cheaper. You could sew them with a little cotton batting in it too if you want to.

I bought those little knee pads for my hardwood-floor-crawler at Babies R Us and they ended up leaving creases in his calves and thighs. And he was a slender baby!! I agree with getting padded-knee pants or cutting the end off a kid-sizes sport sock and pull it over his knees.